Women in science: less and less as the road progresses

2016/06/21 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Berdintasuna
• Ikerketa-zentroak

The CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain) has just published its report entitled “Mujeres Investigadoras 2016”, and the data show that the situation has not changed: as the scientific career progresses, the percentage of women decreases. The same happens in the rest of Europe, although in recent years the percentage of women with university and doctoral degrees has increased, from 60% to 45%.

For example, there is a significant jump between those who are training before the PhD and post-doctoral researchers, from 56.69% to 32%. On the other hand, in research projects in Spain, the percentage of women with the category of Principal Investigator is 35, 98% and in international projects 34.67%.

The separation is not only vertical but also horizontal. Specifically, in Food Science and Technology, the percentage of women researchers is higher than that of men (53.37%). It is followed by Chemical Science and Technology (43.95%) and Agricultural Sciences (41.44%). At the other end is Physics, with 20.62%.

The full report is available on the CSIC website in the Women and Science section.